Editorial: Don’t hide behind the silicon and copper wall

In our Sept. 15 staff editorial, The Pitt News lauded the Internet’s ability to impart certain… In our Sept. 15 staff editorial, The Pitt News lauded the Internet’s ability to impart certain freedoms on its users. Specifically, we noted how Web-provided anonymity can encourage students to sign up for online weight-loss courses, and therefore free them from others’ perceptions or expectations. Hence, such a digital social shield can empower people to make good decisions.

But as a new study suggests, this shield can also make it easy for people to hide from social responsibilities.

MTV’s 24-hour college network, mtvU, the Jed Foundation and the Associated Press conducted a study among a group of college students in an effort to gauge the relationship between emotional health and technology for college students.

The study found that although about 70 percent of students report they’ve read something posted by someone close to them on a social networking site that sounded like that person was crying out for emotional help, less than half would actually make a personal visit, and even fewer would contact the appropriate officials.

We don’t have to run through the tragic series of highly publicized student suicides that has recently unraveled to demonstrate the fact that mental health is a huge issue among young people — one that should not be ignored.

Think about it: 20 percent of college students in the mtvU study said they had friends who talked about ending their lives in the past year, and the CDC reports that suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people and that almost 150,000 youths receive medical treatment for self-inflicted injuries each year.

You’d think social networking sites by their very nature would exponentially improve access to supportive friends for people in need. To a large extent, sites like Facebook might actually be functioning that way, but the mtvU study suggests that something else, something counteractive and consequently dangerous, is happening at the same time: Users are becoming desensitized.

The problem lies in our changing discourse. Internet posts like, “F**k my life,” or “someone just kill me right now,” or even depressing song lyrics are so ubiquitous these days that people find the distinction between cries for help and mere expressions of stress increasingly hazy. As the study points out, about half of students are often confused whether posts are sincere.

This kind of confusion might easily cause post-readers to take their friends’ cries less seriously, avoiding the social responsibility of showing the concern and support they normally would show in face-to-face contact.

If hiding behind this wall of silicon and copper wire becomes more popular, tragic consequences could be in store.

But a digitalized population should fight the urge to zone out from one another’s needs. Exercising compassion, friendship and sacrifice shouldn’t be relegated to only in-person interactions — people should act as responsibly and compassionately online as they do in real life.

For the same purpose, users ought to employ more precise language in wall posts — if you’ve had a hard day, say so directly, not, “The sky is a blanket of dark clouds that hangs heavy over my shoulders.”